According to Martin Luther and the Reformers the glory of the Gospel was a display of the free grace of God. But there can be no free grace as long as sinners trust in their free-will to do the slightest thing. In one sense the very heart of the battle of the Reformation was the teaching of free-will versus free grace. The Reformers battled for free grace in order that all the glory would be God’s and that justification would be by (through) faith alone. What is not often set out in the modern day are the deep roots and destructive tentacles of free-will. Once again, here is a quote by Packer and Johnson in the introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will.
“That human choices are spontaneous and not forced he knows and affirms; it is, indeed, fundamental to his position to do so. It was man’s total inability to save himself, and the sovereignty of Divine grace in his salvation, that Luther was affirming when he denied ‘free-will,’ and it was the contrary that Erasmus was affirming when he maintained ‘free-will.’ The ‘free-will’ in question was ‘free-will’ in relation to God and the things of God. Erasmus defined it as ‘a power of the human will by which man may apply himself to those things that lead to eternal salvation, or turn away from the same.’ It is this that Luther denies…He now has no power to please God. He is unable to do anything but continue in sin. His salvation, therefore, must be wholly of Divine grace, for he himself can contribute nothing to it; and any formulation of the gospel which amounts to saying that God shows grace, not in saving man, but in making it possible for man to save himself, is to be rejected as a lie. The whole work of man’s salvation, first to last, is God’s; and all the glory for it must be God’s also.”
Here, once again, the contradiction between free-will and the sovereignty of God’s grace is seen. The will is free in the sense that human beings are not forced to make the choices they make. But the position of the Reformation was that there was no free-will in terms of the things of God. Erasmus was quite clear in the Roman Catholic position in saying that man may apply to himself the things that lead to eternal salvation. This is precisely what Luther and the Reformers fought against and it is also precisely what modern versions of Pelagianism hold to. Despite the fact that there are few that would call themselves “Pelagians” in our day, this is not the same thing as there not being many Pelagians. Pelagianism is rampant today and it is operating freely in denominations and churches under the title of “Arminianism.” Whenever we leave salvation up to the choice of man, even if our little secret is that God is sovereign in it, we are telling the person virtually nothing different than Erasmus would have.
A free-will is part of our sinful nature that we must be delivered from if we are going to be saved by Divine grace alone. What is thought of as the free-will by fallen man is nothing more than man’s desire to be sufficient for his own destiny on the earth and in eternity. The teaching of free-will leaves man free, at least in his own mind, to determine if he will repent and believe. If faith and believing are up to a free-will, then man is in charge of his eternal destiny and not God. Once again, Erasmus would have cheered for that belief, but Luther would have fought it as the doctrine of demons. The problem, at least for the modern day, is that the doctrine of Erasmus has swept the land. It is the doctrine and attitude of Erasmus that has taken the day rather than the Gospel of Divine grace alone. The doctrine of free-will is intellectually denied by some, but it is not fought against as a teaching which contradicts and overthrows the glory of Divine grace alone in salvation. Instead we have those who want to be gracious toward all in what they call “minor disagreements.” That is what Erasmus did and wanted.
John 1:12-13 should overthrow that convincingly: “12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” In John 1:3 the Scripture says that “all things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” The words “came into being” in both places in verse 3 is really one Greek word, ginomai. It has the basic idea of come into being as it is translated. In John 1:12 the word “become” in the phrase “become children of God” is that same word. The same word is used in the very same context. In fact, it is also used in John 1:14 where “the Word became flesh.” The point, in this context, is that a person becomes a child of God not because of his bloodline. One does not become a child of God because of the will of his own flesh or of any other human flesh. A person does not become a child of God based on the will of any human being. A person becomes a child of God only because of the will of God. The human will is not free to cause itself to become a child of God. The human will is not free to cause itself to be born again. A human soul is born again only because of the will of God. He only does this by grace alone.
If we look at the awesomeness of John 1:12-13, surely it is obvious that a person cannot just make an act of the will and so be saved. It is not in the power of the human will to do what God alone can do. The human soul is utterly dependent on the will of God to be made a child of God and He only does that by grace. The new birth is also an act of God by which Christ comes to dwell in that soul and He becomes its very life. No act of the human will can bring Christ down and move Him into the soul. Until the soul quits striving to do what God alone can do, can it be saved? Until the soul is delivered from its self-sufficiency, can it really rest in the sufficiency of God alone? Until the soul is delivered from its bondage to self in self-love, can it will love God. Until the soul is delivered from its bondage to the devil, can it bow to King Jesus? Until the soul has been delivered from its enmity to God, can it love Him as a child of God? The human will was never given this power. The very attempt to attain these things by an act of human will shows the sin of pride and self-sufficiency that human being have fallen into. Apart from repenting of the fallen state of the free-will, can a person really believe from the whole soul (including the will) the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ?
God Loves... Himself 
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